Donna Haraway’s essay “A Cyborg Manifesto” discusses the critical definitions of cyborgs and how society is interconnected with technology. Haraway focuses on anti-movements while being a feminist scholar. She defines cyborgs into three categories. “…a cybernetic organism, a hybrid of machine and organism, a creature of social reality as well as a creature of fiction” (5). However, the purpose of this essay is to shed light on the views of hybridity and how they relate to the disability community and their language towards accessibility.
The concept of assimilation in Haraway’s metaphor of cyborg presents immigrants needing to learn a new language. In the disability community, the language used refers to the level of independence of a person and interactions within their environment. This level of independence often relates one’s limitations to another’s strength and once the limitation is overcome by another device, a place of unity and inclusivity can be reached. For example, in the past, a person with a mobility disability relied on human-propelled wheelchairs to get around as well as human assistance to transfer to their beds, couches, and showers using bars, rails, etc. Today advanced technology allows for communication between humans and technology as with a computerized wheelchair. The language and communication are with triggers and sensors that are activated by the human and received by the technology. These modern-day technologies provide the opportunity to participate more fully in societal roles.
In Haraway’s experience in the social role of female/feminist, there are many barriers to gaining equal opportunities for work and wages. “The consequence of the wage relationship is systematic alienation, as the worker is dissociated from his (sic) product” (Haraway 22). This situation is similar to one with a disability, various technologies have advanced the opportunities to obtain jobs and share knowledge where barriers previously existed. From electric wheelchairs, speech-generating devices, and adapted software, humans with disabilities can participate in roles that they were previously alienated from. “Labor is the preeminently privileged category enabling the Marxist to overcome illusion and find that point of view that is necessary for changing the world. Labor is the humanizing activity that makes man; labor is an ontological category permitting the knowledge of a subject, and so the knowledge of subjugation and alienation” (Haraway 22). Technology enables individuals with disabilities to gain education and training and secure jobs that leverage their expertise to drive change.